Fruct. Sem. PI. 1: 8,/fe. 11 (1788).- Type: Illustr. in Plukenet, Phytographia t. 91J. 5 (1691).
Cynosurus coracanus Linn., Syst. Nat., ed. 10,2:875 (1759)
Regional litterature: FI. Gabon 5: 232, tab. 38 (1962); Fl. Nig. 31 (1970); FWTA: 396 (1972); Gram. Cameroun: 144 (1992); Poac. CI: 150, fig. (1995); Fl. Chad (2013); Fl. Ethiopia & Eritrea 7: 139, fig (1995); Fl Zambesiaca 10,2: 158, fig (1999); Pl. Sudan & S Sudan: 128 (2015).
Description:
* Tufted robust annual, up to 1.5 m high. Culms erect or ascending, glabrous. Leaves flat, 30-60 cm long and 6-12 mm wide.
* Inflorescence subdigitate, composed of 4-20 linear-oblong, brown racemes 4-14 cm long and 8-15 cm wide clustered together at the culm, straight or inwardly curving at maturity. Spikelets densely imbricating.
* Spikelets 6-9-flowered, ovate, 5-9 mm long; florets very closely imbricating, non-shattering at maturity. Lower glume 3-nerved, 1.5-3 mm long; upper glume with additional nerves in the keel, 1.8-5 mm long. Lemmas narrowly ovate, 2.2-4.7 mm long, subacute. Caryopsis almost globose, finely striate-punctate, varying from black through reddish-brown to whitish.
Distribution West Africa: Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, Sudan, South Sudan.
Distribution world-wide: Ethiopia, DRC and C and NE Africa, southern Africa; introduced in Tunesia, Libya, Egypt and Asia; many records from Zanzibar.
Note: Cytogenetical and morphological data show E. coracana to have been domesticated from E. africana, probably in eastern Africa (de Wet et al., 1984). Evaluation within the crop is thought to have progressed from the uplands to the lowlands of eastern Africa.